We are delighted to announce that Liam Aspin has joined us as a regular columnist and feature writer at Greyhound Weekly. Liam is a staff member with Mark Wallis and the MWD Partnership. Here’s a wonderful introduction from the man himself.
I guess you could say I’ve come a fair way in the 7 years I’ve been involved in this great sport now! From starting out just catching dogs at the pick up at Mildenhall, to parading winners on the biggest stage – derby final night, I’ve loved (nearly!) every minute of it.
My love for greyhound racing came unexpectedly. A conversation with college friends in a corridor at the College Of West Anglia, led us to go to Mildenhall, my local track which I knew well having raced stock cars there for years previously. The dogs were alien to me though, (With the exception of going once as a little kid with my dad, which I barely remember). I wasn’t aware that I was about to discover what I wanted for the rest of my life, nor that it was going to flash past me at 35, 40 mph! I was hooked. Weeks on end I went back, and I didn’t miss a meeting until a family holiday to Greece ruined my fun one time! Even then I still went through the card and spent many euros on the Greek internet to find the results!
It was around this time when I was standing on the middle steps at Mildenhall, and I was called upon from the top step, by the man I have all this involvement to thank for today, to go and sit with him and his daughter. His name was Keith Munnings, and his daughter was Hayley. The 2 nicest people I will ever have the pleasure of meeting. Keith’s dogs were his life and had been for a considerable amount of time. He had 2 on an owners trainers license at the time, something the GBGB have now outlawed and wrongly so in my opinion, but nevertheless after a few weeks he got me a kennelhand license and I was involved.
I was arriving at the track early to help Hayley empty the dogs out pre-kennelling. Not that she needed the help, I just wanted to be around the dogs and on the end of the lead! I’d go to the pick up at the end of their races and catch them too. That walk from the pick up to the kennel block was my favourite time of the week… every week! By this point, if they weren’t already, greyhounds were my life.
Funnily enough, it was on another college friends day out that my next opportunity came about. We’d all been go-karting, and at the end I picked my phone up to a barrage of Facebook notifications from family and friends tagging me in a post that started with ‘Do you want to work with racing greyhounds?’.
Yes. Yes I do.
I made the call not knowing who the trainer was. It never said in the advert, so who was going to answer the phone was anybody’s guess! I soon found out. I’d seen big race replays on Sky Sports, and once you hear Kevin Boon, you don’t usually forget him!
We arranged an interview at the kennel and I when I got there I don’t mind admitting I was a bit starstruck! I was walking through the kennel block and laying there in their beds, to name just a few, were Murrys Act (juvenile winner, coronation stakes winner, derby finalist, Essex vase winner), Shaneboy Freddie (Derby semi finalist, Sussex cup winner) and Farneys Cookie (3 steps to victory winner), all these category 1 winners, and I’m thinking “oh my god, I’m just a little fan boy from Mildenhall, I can’t do this!”.
Anyway I did, and I had some great times travelling the length and breadth of the country with Kevin for a few years. Undoubtedly one of the greatest moments was when Murrys Act won the Essex vase beating (my current boss!) Mark Wallis trained Roswell Romanov in the final.
Kevin’s superstitious, and he was away on holiday for the first round, so I went myself. For the semi-final unfortunately his dad was taken ill, so again I went myself. Come the final I wasn’t aware of his superstition at this point. I just assumed he was going. I asked what time we were leaving and he said ‘YOU’RE leaving at 2:15!’. What do you mean me? I’ve only been in the job 3 months! ‘You’ll be alright, just remember to wear your tie’ That’s all I got. He’d told me in the week you had to wear a tie for category 1 finals. So like a complete wally I did. Of course you didn’t have to, of course you didn’t! But that’s Kevin. He’d have got a kick out of that. Thankfully I took a jumper with me and the tie was swiftly discarded of as soon as I got there and realised no one but me had one on! I could tell a million stories like that from Kevin!
All good things come to an end though and Kevin slowed up and reduced runners so I had to move on. I didn’t have a lot to do really. I went back to my holy grail as I knew it, Mildenhall, or as it’s now known, Suffolk Downs. It’s not the same as it was though. The people and trainers are great there but it’s lost its spark for me. That’s probably down to the morning racing mind you. That job did lead to where I am today though.
Mark Wallis approached me with an opportunity of going to work for him and Mike Davis under the MWD Partnership banner. Now as a wannabe future trainer it kind of seemed a no brainer to go and see how Mark does things and so far everything is going well. We have some of the fastest dogs in the UK in the kennel and, if you can’t enjoy working and watching dogs like that, you’re probably in the wrong game. Please God we keep going forward and have more success in the future.
Well that’s pretty much my journey through this sport so far. I won’t be a weekly columnist on here, time doesn’t allow in a full time kennel, but I’ll try to pick up some competitions and talking points along the way! If you did manage to get to the end and are still reading, come find me at a track and I’ll get you a drink, you must be bored! Until next time.
